


Doing Time

by Yessica



Series: Whumptober 2020 Yessica Edition [19]
Category: Epithet Erased (Cartoon)
Genre: Character Study, Chronic Pain, Mild Hurt/Comfort, Post-Canon, Whumptober 2020, like ten minutes post canon actually
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-10-21
Updated: 2020-10-21
Packaged: 2021-03-09 06:55:02
Rating: General Audiences
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 1,025
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/27139690
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/Yessica/pseuds/Yessica
Summary: Ramsey deals with some side effects of using his epithet.(Whumptober day 21 - Chronic pain)
Series: Whumptober 2020 Yessica Edition [19]
Series URL: https://archiveofourown.org/series/1949233
Kudos: 42
Collections: Whumptober 2020





	Doing Time

**Author's Note:**

> My first try at this fandom, be merciful!

Ramsey remembered the first time he turned something into gold like it was yesterday.

He was just a stupid kid back then, playing around with things he shouldn't. Throwing bricks at glass houses like nobody's business – literally in some cases. And it had been an accident, but the best things often start out as such.

It was like a parlor trick to him for a while, turning small pebbles into shiny nuggets. He took it home and showed his parents, showed them he was special, though they hardly cared. Starting at a young age Ramsey practiced in his room. Turning bigger things, keeping them gold for longer. He never really got the hang of that second one, but plenty to make a pretty buck and get away with it often enough for it to matter.

Not everybody took kindly to his business methods, of course. Before long he had the keepers of the law after him as well as those of unsavory measures. Ramsey got as adapt at wiggling his way out of tight corners as he was at getting into them. And if all else failed, he could always count on his secret weapon to do the trick.

Ramsey didn't remember the first time he turned _himself_ into gold though. He supposed it must have been an instinctive thing, since epithets often were like that. Maybe he was about to get the shit beat out of him and tried the first thing he could think of to protect himself? That sounded like something that would happen to him.

How often he used it after that was anybody's guess. Ramsey was not a fighter, he preferred to outrun his troubles like a champ. But desperate times called for desperate measures and at the end of the day, he'd rather be alive than dead.

That didn't change the fact it hurt like a son of a bitch.

"Fuck."

He hissed under his breath and cracked his knuckles. The sound was abysmal – not helped any by his age. For some reason, he was prone to forget just how painful it was if he kept this up for too long. Human bodies were not made to undergo the chemical transition into another material without suffering for it. In layman's terms: turning himself to gold had started to become a terribly straining stunt to pull.

As he got older it only got worse. First, it had been completely effortless to pull it off, then it had started to make him ache a bit after turning back. Ramsey still considered himself to be very much in his prime, but he couldn't deny it wasn't good for his arthritis and he avoided it when he could.

Then the pain had lingered. Even hours or days after using Goldbricker on himself he could still feel it in his bones, grating down on him. It was easy to ignore when he had other things on his mind, though he had lost too many night's sleep just lying awake and grumbling his displeasure at his soreness to the ceiling. Now he refrained from using it in any situation short of life and death.

Which happened to be exactly what the situation with Zora had turned into, unsurprisingly on all counts. Ramsey was sure he'd feel the smart of it as a great little reminder of that lovely encounter for weeks to come, if not forever.

"Did you get injured? Do you require medical assistance?" Percy asked from the front seat. Ramsey could see her watching him in the rearview mirror, eyebrows drawn down in consternation.

"I'm fine." He waved her away dismissively but the movement only served to make his elbow hurt more. The handcuff used to chain him to the interior of the car rattled. "Keep your eyes on the road, lady."

"I would never dream of driving blindly," she said matter-of-factly.

Ramsey laughed a bit, leaning back in the seat and closing his eyes. His chest stung and he wasn't sure if it was the epithet or the conducting electricity. When was he gonna learn he wasn't a young'un anymore and shouldn't be reckless like that? He would very much like to see his pension or all his schemes would have been for nothing.

"Why are you in pain?"

Opening his eyes again, Ramsey could tell Percy wasn't looking at him anymore. She kept her hands on the steering wheel in the traditional nine and three position, exactly as he'd expect from a cop. Or maybe not just any cop, but definitely this one.

"My epithet," he explained. "It has some... unfortunate side effects. Shouldn't be going around using it like an idiot."

Her eyes drifted to him again, brilliant blue honing in on him. Before, Ramsey had thought she seemed kind of clueless for a cop, but her calculating gaze was something else. Percy looked at people like she could see right through them. For obvious reasons, this made him nervous.

"I do think I understand," she said, "because my stamina works in the same manner. I believe this will suffice." Percy extended her arm over the console and into the back of the car. Ramsey could have pointed out this was probably some kind of traffic law violation but decided not to when he saw the apothecary spawn from the seat next to his. Instantly it made a wave of pure comfort crash into him and though it could not completely take away the lingering pain of pushing his body past its limits, it made a world of difference.

"Thanks," he said. Outside the window, the world zoomed past in a blur. Percy had promised him a cozy spot in jail so long as he agreed to cooperate with the feds for a while. It wouldn't be his favorite pastime, but if it kept him away from Zora and the ones who sent her looking for his hide he wouldn't complain. "Any way I could get one of these in my new cell?"

Percy had returned her hand to the steering wheel. "I'm afraid non-regulated furniture is not allowed in our penitentiary facility."

Ramsey let out a dry chuckle. "Figures."

**Author's Note:**

> Requested by Zeke on [my Tumblr](http://sharada-n.tumblr.com/)


End file.
